Dwarves
Location: Dwarven Underground Government: Meritocracy Attitude: Hard-Working and Inviting The dwarves are a hardy, strong race of dedicated workers, drinkers and engineers. Though their society may not be as strong as others due to historical influences, they are nonetheless an enduring people who can withstand any trial thrown their way. Culture and Lifestyle The dwarves have a number of unique bloodlines that, ever since free of elvish influence, have grown in a number of unique ways. However, due to the elves meddling in their past bloodlines during a period of time when they were slaves to the tall, pointy-eared folk, all living dwarves share a few very common physical, mental and societal traits. Two wildly divergent groups of dwarves include the wicked gray dwarves and the monastic Order of the Soaked Beard from the Sunrise Islands. An industrious and hardworking bearded folk, the dwarves enjoy few things in life better than hard work, cats, and fine spirits. Dwarves are fairly jolly and outgoing, with a strong sense of community and brotherhood. Dwarves generally aspire to make great crafts and works of art and function, gleefully harvesting all the bounty of the earth to do so. In ancient times, they were given brief access to machinery by humans (before being attacked by them) and have kept it ever since, adapting it for their uses and always on the hunt for old tech to salvage. Dwarves tend to be single-minded in their pursuits, often times pursuing one career, be it smithing, mining, engineering, or anything else. They pour every bit of their mental processes into their craft, achieving a profound sense of accomplishment if it meets or exceeds the standard. Dwarves are a people constantly trying to outdo themselves, and their greatest workers are among their most important societal figureheads, due to their meritocratic system of governance. Dwarves live in subterranean fortresses, interconnected by intricate series of tunnels and mineshafts. After the ancient war between humans and elves and their treatment at the hands of both races prior to said war, the dwarves have kept out of major surface affairs, looking inwardly to their mountain and subterranean homes and perfecting their crafts. History Dwarven history is hard to measure by their own accounts, as they rarely write down their history on easy-to-categorize paper, opting instead to display their history with works of art, such as stone statues, carvings, hieroglyphics and mountains. What can be known from these vague works is that the dwarves believe that they were born deep in the earth, made into living rock by the will of the ore that they came to mine. The earliest dwarven civilizations are strange and mysterious, but eventually they migrated up to the surface, where they were discovered by the elven empire. This became one of the most significant moments in dwarven history, for the elves with their magical powers quickly forced the dwarves into servitude. Seeing potential in their kind, the elves began a long process of breeding programs that turned the dwarves into what they are today. Qualities the elves needed their ideal dwarven species to reflect included a desire to work, skill in crafting and building, single-mindedness when it came to their duties and a deeply-routed need to meet or exceed the expectations of their peers and masters when it came to their craft. They were also bred to be loyal to the elves, though this eventually fell out of practice when the elves came to abandon them. This was also where the dwarves gained their long beards and love of drinking from---the old elves thought that the beards made the dwarves look funny and unthreatening, and the workers were often rewarded with alcohol to keep them docile and happy. Alongside their fellow slaves, the orcs, they served the elves for many, many years before their masters one day up and vanished, leaving them all behind. The dwarves and the orcs, already at odds in their competition to be the better of the two slave races, suddenly found that they had no masters to report to or keep them in line. As such, almost immediately the two races fell into warfare over territory that the elves once ruled. The dwarves became focused on beating the orcs for a variety of different reasons, but the end result was always the same. Neither race could effectively win out over the other in their skirmishes. The orcs were made to be more militaristic, but the dwarves were more clever. Yet, despite this, they couldn't come to any agreements over territory. It seemed that warfare would always be the only option available to both races. Then, a new variable was introduced: man. The humans of old had sent pilgrims to begin colonizing the "new world" and in doing so, they made contact with the dwarves. The dwarves were fascinated by the machinery these tall men possessed, immediately going to great lengths to acquire it, reverse-engineer it and apply it throughout their society. While human engineering was rather elegant-looking, dwarven engineering was all about function and not form, with some of it even looking crude. Over the years, however, the dwarves have refined their crafting skills in the field of engineering. The humans supplied them with machinery in exchange for a number of valuable natural resources which, little did the dwarves know, would come to bite them in the ass. The arrival of man's empire from the Old Continent signified an end to the conflict between the dwarves and the orcs, as the humans had no intention of allying with either of them. The magnificently powerful armies of the humans drove both races back, forcing the dwarves into their underground and mountain homes and the orcs into the desert. The dwarves went quietly, knowing that they had no way to fight the human empire, and were frankly just glad that the humans didn't want to enslave them like the elves. And so, the dwarves retreated into their underground homes and for the first time in ages were allowed to focus on building a society of their own. The elves had done their damage, however, and the dwarves were unable to form a strong government that ruled over all of the dwarven bloodlines. Instead, it was agreed that each major bloodline and family would keep to themselves and govern their own members. Over time, this evolved into a meritocracy, where the most creative, hard-working and dedicated members of the bloodlines came to be its most important figureheads and leaders. Staying out of the conflict between man and elf, the dwarves kept their heads down until long after the destruction caused by the Dark Witch after her death at the hands of an ancient human hero and his legendary sword. Their homes were well protected from the necrotic cloud that sprawled across the earth, but some dwarven communities were killed, their bloodlines and cities eradicated. They didn't dare emerge to see the sunlight until ages later, after the world had been given a chance to heal. Now, the dwarves and the humans don't have a very violent relationship, but it's hardly a friendly one. Their hatred of the orcs and the elves runs deep within their race, however, making conflict with either of them quite likely. The dwarves of the modern age make valuable additions to the surface world, trading many of their masterfully-crafted goods and wears to various races and cultures. The dwarves are content to let things simply be, and they continue to live out their ancient traditions and lifestyle in their fortress homes. They aren't averse to having other races in their homes, but are careful when they do so. Technology Notable Members Dwarven Settlements Category:Races Category:Dwarven Underground